If I thought the book was poor so far then what happened next was unbelievable. A good lawyer is calm in that sort of emergency. If she was so incapable of handling the pressure she wouldn't have been successful in her job. She does what an immature schoolgirl would have done.

Instead of staying to sort the matter out and acting with integrity she does a runner. We then have a complete change of personality. She's within moments of achieving a partnership when an error comes to light. At the beginning of the book we see her as a competent, if over-worked, lawyer, very much in control of what's she's doing.

I found the character of Samantha Sweeting infuriating and totally unbelievable. It was only the fact that it was a borrowed book that stopped me ripping it up and throwing it in the bin. There was a point when I wondered if I would be able to finish this book. It's only the charms of the gardener that keep her in the job. Desperate for somewhere to stay she accepts the job despite the fact that she can't cook, launder or do anything else remotely domesticated. There's a beautiful house nearby and she knocks on the door hoping for a glass of water, but the owner thinks that she's come for an interview for the post of housekeeper. She gets on a train - the first train to anywhere - and finds herself stranded in a Cotswold village. Just as she's about to achieve this she apparently makes a massive error and runs away from it all. She is desperate to become a partner of the prestigious law firm for whom she works. Samantha Sweeting is a lawyer and all her adult life she's had just one ambition. It's formulaic chick lit, but if you want an easy, light-hearted read then you could do worse than to borrow it from the library. Summary: A top-flight lawyer becomes a housekeeper despite having no domestic skills.

The undomestic goddess